About Patt Morrison

Patt Morrison is a live two-hour public affairs show. The program is known for its innovative discussions of local politics and culture, and for its presentation of national and world news as it affects Southern California.

US President John F. Kennedy (C) wipes his forehead as he delivers the State of the Union address before Congress in Washington, DC, in January 1963, as Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson (C, back) looks on.
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Since the dawn of television, conventional wisdom has held that American regional accents and dialects are on the wane. The prevailing belief has been that mass media communication has homogenized the regionally-specific diversity of our American English. But a new essay by Rob Misfud says our linguistic diversity is growing, specifically in something called the North Cities Shift. It’s a vowel-manipulation you hear sometimes from people native to Chicago, the characters in the movie Fargo, and even Sarah Palin.

WEIGH IN:

Are we all going to sound like Michelle Bachman in the future? Do people who speak in this manner have any awareness of their accent? What’s in an accent, anyway?

Guests:

Rob Misfud, columnist at Slate and author of the essay on the NCS

Aaron Dinkin, assistant professor of sociolinguistics at Swarthmore College